Massachusetts judge Barbara Lenk must slap her forehead several times a day in response to the crazy right-wing misunderstandings of a 2000 ruling that she wrote about incest.

It’s actually a pretty simple situation: In that case, she was asked to analyze the state’s existing incest law, and found that it only applied to heterosexual intercourse — gays, she discovered, were exempt. She didn’t write the law, just interpreted it. You know, like judges do.

But now that Lenk’s been nominated to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, conservatives are scrambling to find reasons to object to her appointment. After all, she couldn’t possibly be qualified! She’s a lesbian. Oh no, not a lesbian.

So that’s led Howie Carr, a columnist for self-described “newspaper” The Boston Herald, to foam at the mouth. He’s really got nothing to say — basically, his argument is that what she wrote could be misinterpreted to sound bad, and that’s reason enough to oppose her. Uh huh. He also wastes no opportunity to point out, multiple times, that she’s gay, as if it matters somehow. And he uses the term “gay agenda,” as if it is the year 1952.

Now, there is a germ of an interesting point in here, and if Carr was a better writer he’d be able to exploit it. That germ is this: Lenk’s finding is based on the premise that incest laws are intended to prevent genetic abnormalities, and that’s why they apply only to heterosexual couples. But some heterosexuals are not capable of producing offspring because they’re too young or aren’t fertile. And so, Carr says, under Lenk’s reasoning, infertile or underage incest shouldn’t be against the law. Ladies and gentlemen, your witness!